Wednesday 25 December 2013 07.30 EST
First published on Wednesday 25 December 2013 07.30 EST

The Christmas my parents gave me and my sister a trampoline was probably one of the best of my life. I had been doing gymnastics for about a year, and I was madly in love with the sport, so the idea that I could now do it all day long in the back garden, that I could now spend every waking hour practicing if I wanted to, filled me with glee.

As soon as the thing was assembled (apologies, Dad, for the passive voice - as soon as my father had lovingly, painstakingly assembled it, following the barely-followable pictogram instructions), we climbed up onto it and started bouncing. Unlike the older trampolines at the gym, which had been bounced on by hundreds of girls, this one had new springs and a tightly woven mat. It was far bouncier than any trampoline I'd encountered before, and I came close too many times to flying right off the thing.

I am an impatient adult, and I was an even more impatient child (while Dad was wrangling the heavy metal pieces of the frame and struggling with the springs, I was hovering around unhelpfully, asking when it would be done). I can't imagine how I would have reacted if we'd been given a trampoline but told we'd have to wait five months to bounce on it. But because I grew up in a warm climate, we didn't have to wait.

I grew up in Sydney, Australia, where it regularly hits 30 degrees on Christmas Day – and I don't mean Fahrenheit. It's a hot, humid summer, except when it's a hot, dry summer, and that means that our Christmas looks and feels very different from how it does in much of the US and the UK.

Christmas carols and television commercials will tell you that the best Christmas is a cold, snowy one – that we should all be dreaming of a white Christmas. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose (and fingers, and ears, and toes, and really not so much nipping as violently clawing). Bizarrely, given that the event it commemorates occurred in the desert, the modern platonic ideal of Christmas all but requires cold weather. Otherwise, why would you be hanging your stockings by the fire with care? Why would you be riding in a one horse open sleigh? Why would you be spiking that woman's drink and coercing her to stay with you because baby, it's cold outside?

Even after nine yuletide seasons in America's northeast, I'm not convinced. I'd rather a warm Christmas than a white Christmas.

At home, Christmas means a barbeque outside, or better yet, a cold meal ("Sit down, let's eat it before it gets warm!") and a lot of cold beer. If you go to church, you swelter in your pew. Then, you get to go outside – to the beach, or the park – where you can run around and get away from the relatives who are almost certainly driving you mad. Lots of people head to the beach to play beach cricket, which I guess is the Australian equivalent of going outside for a snowball fight. To be fair, I'm not sure which is worse: ending up with snow down your pants or ending up with sand down your pants. I might let the cold win this round, but only because I've never quite warmed to cricket.

For kids, there are several advantages to a southern hemisphere Christmas (or even one in the toasty parts of the northern hemisphere). First, earlier sunrise means waking up earlier, which means unwrapping your presents earlier (unfortunately for parents, later sundown on the 24th probably means it's harder to get kids into bed so you can do your last minute wrapping). As my sister and I discovered, a warm Christmas means you can play with your outdoor toys – bikes, skateboards, jetpacks – right away. Adults who have tried to have people over on a snowy Christmas Day, or who have tried to get to a friend's or relative's house in the snow/sleet/hail/ice, know that the reality of snow on Christmas – with the shovelling and the ploughing and the driving at snail's pace and the slipping on the ice with arms full of presents – outweighs the picturesque vision of snow on Christmas. Sure, it's white, but what a pain in the ass.

I want to be clear: that it's hot in Australia in December doesn't stop us from invoking those visions of northern cold. Shops still spray fake snow everywhere, or lay down cotton wool under their Christmas trees. We still draw snow men and picture Santa on a sleigh with reindeer. We still sing Jingle Bells (though we've adapted some carols to suit our climatic needs - "I'm Dreaming of a Dry Christmas", "Carol of the Birds", "Deck the Sheds with Bits of Wattle" … and invented a few of our own: "Christmas Where the Gum Trees Grow", "Santa Claus in the Bush", "Upside Down Christmas").

For those who simply cannot separate Christmas from cold, some towns will throw a mini "Christmas in July" when it's seasonally appropriate to be sitting by a fireplace and drinking mulled wine. In December, though, we get many of the trappings of a cold Christmas, but with swimsuits instead of ugly sweaters.

This Christmas, I'm once again far from home and on the cold side of the world. The weather outside is frightful, and my still-unaccustomed feet are bundled up in fleece-lined tights, thick woollen socks, and boots. I won't be home in the Sydney sunshine for many months. Everyone around me is dreaming of a white Christmas, but I'm dreaming about wiggling my toes in the warm, soft sand.